Do you ever start watching videos on YouTube and come to a sudden realization a couple of hours later that you started off watching music videos and now you’re looking at someone trying to ingest a spoonful of cinnamon? We’ve all gone down this rabbit hole and we might blame our poor time management skills, we’re actually nudged along this path by YouTube’s AI.
YouTube Chief Product Officer Neal Mohan has revealed that more than 70 percent of the time that users spend watching videos on YouTube, they’re watching what has been served up for them by artificial intelligence.
The average watching session for mobile users is more than 60 minutes “because of what our recommendations engines are putting in front of you,” Mohan said.
Mohan added that YouTube has focused a lot in the past few years on machine learning and artificial intelligence to learn what its users like and make. The AI’s job is to give them a steady stream of content which essentially means that each user gets their own synthetic or personalized channel.
The recommendations served up to the user are personalized and they follow the user around the platform so that they always see recommendations based on what they’re watching or searching for.
Overall, users watch more than a billion hours of video every single day. This is what makes YouTube the undisputed king of free online video even when behemoths like Facebook are trying to muscle into its territory
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